Advice for newbie's first stove: PE vs BK

[Hoytman]

So the upstairs is only 1100 sq ft? The rest is basement?

 

[Highbeam]

Don't believe anyone who ever tells you one is more complicated than the other to burn, there are plenty of people much dumber than you, successfully operating both.

As a current actual user of both a noncat and a cat stove, the cat stove is absolutely more complicated than the noncat. We need to be honest here and not allow bias to warp our views. My wife or kids can run a noncat by just stuffing wood in and not letting it glow red per the manual by adjusting the one air intake slider. The BK is for dad only. There is a temperature at which you must throw a lever and a few other things you must do with the thermostat dial related to time. I agree with @stoveliker that the noncat takes more interactions per day since once the BK is cruising with the thermostat in control it can be ignored for 24+hours. That's pretty great. To be fair though, neither is particularly complicated to operate.

My window gets pretty clean (see image above) after just the mandatory 20 minutes on high, required at the beginning of each load.

This sounds complicated. It's also not true. The 20 minutes on high is recommended and not required or mandatory. Many of us do not do it because it would overheat the catalyst or the flue.

 

[Ashful]

My wife or kids can run a noncat by just stuffing wood in and not letting it glow red per the manual by adjusting the one air intake slider. The BK is for dad only.

My wife and kids both operate our BK's. Run wide open until probe reads active, turn bypass lever, set timer for 20 minutes. When timer goes off, turn down to mark on dial. Believe it or not, they can handle that!

This sounds complicated. It's also not true. The 20 minutes on high is recommended and not required or mandatory. Many of us do not do it because it would overheat the catalyst or the flue.

Fine, I shouldn't have used the word "mandatory". It's what the instructions in the manual prescribe. Call it "recommended" if you want.

But that diversion into recommended vs. required has very little to do with the point being discussed, namely that the glass on a BK 30 will be clean after 20 minutes running on high... as "recommended".

How does running on high overheat your catalyst or flue? I'm running pretty near the extremes on both short and tall flues, between my two stoves, and have never had this trouble with the Ashfords.

 

[EbS-P]

Can you do this in your cat stove? Better question would you want to do this in your car stove?? Third page and I didn’t see any new arguments. So I will present tube stove pizza.

 

[Highbeam]

My wife and kids both operate our BK's. Run wide open until probe reads active, turn bypass lever, set timer for 20 minutes. When timer goes off, turn down to mark on dial. Believe it or not, they can handle that!


Fine, I shouldn't have used the word "mandatory". It's what the instructions in the manual prescribe. Call it "recommended" if you want.

But that diversion into recommended vs. required has very little to do with the point being discussed, namely that the glass on a BK 30 will be clean after 20 minutes running on high... as "recommended".

How does running on high overheat your catalyst or flue? I'm running pretty near the extremes on both short and tall flues, between my two stoves, and have never had this trouble with the Ashfords.

30 minutes on high, after cat engagement, overheats both flue and catalyst in my setup. This is of course problematic when we know that some members can run full loads on high! Maybe because I'm burning dry softwoods.

The condar cat meter has a "too hot" line that I'm trying to respect to extend cat life and of course the class A chimney has a temperature limit that I'm also wanting to respect not only for safety but because you're just wasting fuel after a point. Some amount of char is necessary because it helps the burn but not 30 minutes for all of us.

Also, to further the diversion, my glass gunk will not burn clean after 20 minutes. That must be an east coast or oak thing. Or maybe my princess is different than the 30 box, or more likely, the coating after months of low burning is quite thick.

 

[stoveliker]

Poindexter runs softwoods full loads high, without issues I believe.

Tho I don't have data on cat hour lifetime for his setup. And how to define that is a whole nother debate (just as what burn time means).

 

[Ashful]

Also, to further the diversion, my glass gunk will not burn clean after 20 minutes. That must be an east coast or oak thing. Or maybe my princess is different than the 30 box, or more likely, the coating after months of low burning is quite thick.

East coast oak vs. west coast softwood may play some factor in that, but I do believe the BK30's have a more aggressive air wash system, so that's likely a factor too. There were claims made in some past threads from owners who transitioned from Princess to BK30, who noted the way the 30 keeps the glass noticeably cleaner. I assume they were using the same wood, unless a cross-country move prompted the stove swap, but I don't remember those details.

 

[Highbeam]

Poindexter runs softwoods full loads high, without issues I believe.

Tho I don't have data on cat hour lifetime for his setup. And how to define that is a whole nother debate (just as what burn time means).

As I recall, he, like me, only gets two years or about 10k hours. A dead cat is easy to spot, as is a cat thermometer that drops out of active range.

 

[rijim]

Awesome, this is so helpful, thank you. I was told my the store selling the stove that we can't use bricks in a BK Princess. He said it will burn too hot, too quick, and warp/damage the cat (if I'm remembering correctly). Is that true?

I would guess that your chimney will likely be 15’ - 16’ ; I’m 8’ above sea level (can see Narragansett Bay at end of street), your elevation has to be higher with about same chimney so this equals slightly lower draft. If you crisscross the blocks and leave air gaps it is likely to run hot (no different than running pine or small splits loaded loosely with gaps, right). You can always throw a split or two with higher moisture count in, moisture will knock down peak temps. I’m running an Ashford 30.2, different design stove with same CAT.

 

[Hogwildz]

Great question. The basement is only partial, about 500 sq ft (of the 1600 sq ft total). We plan to run a space heater if needed, but last year we didn't do anything and it covered in the 40's or 50's (though, I guess we were running the boiler down there which emitted some heat). I read that it wouldn't really be a concern since it's underground and won't dip below 40~ if the whole home is 75ish. HVAC folks came out to evaluate mini splits (the low temp ones) and said I wouldn't need to worry about the basement. That said, I'm a novice and that was one of my early concerns - do you think I should look at another option?

As far as pushing air, I was told I'd want to blow hot air down the bedroom hallway. But what you're saying makes more sense. Do you typically put a fan down the bedrooms and push it out into the furnace room?

Might be helpful to keep a thermometer in the basement and see how cold it actually gets. I use no heat in the basement here, as being below ground level, it never goes below 50-55F. Never had an issue with needing heat down there to keep the pipes from freezing in 16 years.

 

[Hogwildz]

The PE will have no less of a learning curve. Possibly worse. And will require more interaction with the stove than the BK, in particular in shoulder seasons.

That's a load of crap. Period. Interaction here is every 12 hours, I load it, let her get up, turn her down and done for the next 12 hours. Both are good stoves, both take learning and getting used to.

 

[Hoytman]

My neighbor bought a used 2012 King model, slapped in a new catalyst and is getting 18-30 hours loading on coals with 5 measly 16” splits that he can cover with his hand . Below is what he gets when he tends after a long burn…18-30 hrs. Does he really even need to tend at those times? No.

I’ll eat your PE if it can do that.


Due credit where credit is due…
A 12 hr burn or tending cycle is no slouch with a tube stove, but it still isn’t even in the same ball park as the BK. Just because a BK user tends in 12 hr cycles in no way means they have to as the pictures above prove. Just think of that stove was full how long it could go between tending.

I tend my coal stove every 12 hours as well. That is I shake AND add coal. It will burn for literally 3-4 days of left alone. If I shake and do not add coal, with a 120 lb load it’ll burn for 6-7 days in mild heat o fairly cold temps. But it’s not apples to apples. Neither is comparing any tube stove to a BK…least until they can make a tube stove burn as long…then it becomes apples to apples.

 

[jdr7]

So the upstairs is only 1100 sq ft? The rest is basement?

No, the upstairs is 1500 sq ft or so. The basement is unfinished, so I wasn't counting it, but it only goes under part of the home (the rest is additions that were put on). So the basement is about 500 sq ft. The rest is crawlspace.

 

[jdr7]

Might be helpful to keep a thermometer in the basement and see how cold it actually gets. I use no heat in the basement here, as being below ground level, it never goes below 50-55F. Never had an issue with needing heat down there to keep the pipes from freezing in 16 years.

Yeah, I think we're similiar. We had the boiler last winter down there which I guess put off a little heat, but it was never close to freezing pipes.

 

[begreen]

If the sill plate is well sealed and the plumbing is not run up outer walls, then an underground basement can stay at a moderate temp in some cases. But older homes can often have leaky sill plates and some homes have plumbing in bad locations. Our next door neighbor's old farmhouse has a basement and crawlspace combo. His house was built the year before ours, and in both houses they put the crawlspace end on a large doug fir timber. (8x8) on the ground. He had a ton of air leaks there. Ours was so bad that it became a rodent highway. That all got fixed in 2006.

 

[Highbeam]

That's a load of crap. Period. Interaction here is every 12 hours, I load it, let her get up, turn her down and done for the next 12 hours. Both are good stoves, both take learning and getting used to.

I think his point was that when you can only reload every 24 hours instead of 12 then you are futzing with the cat stove half as much. Some of us only reload a cat stove every 24 hours for 95 % of the heating season and that's no crap!

PE vs. BK is analogous to a cat v. noncat debate since both stoves are pretty much best of each tech.

 

[bholler]

Good info. But why didn't you just turn up the BK a little, to get flame show? I know the air wash on the Princess isn't as good as the BK30's, so the glass may have been gummed up after running extended low burns, but mine always burns the glass clean (other than lower corners) after a short time with flame.

The only shortcoming I've seen in the BK30's is that, in an apparent effort to keep the glass cleaner (vs. older models like Princess or King), they increased the amount or velocity of air brought in thru the air wash. This can stir up fly ash and clog your combustor, if your draft is way over max spec, as mine was on one of my two Ashford 30's. This was resolved with a key damper, but that's an added bit of hardware that not everyone wants to fiddle with, so something to consider for folks with very tall chimneys (eg. over 25 feet).

The flame show from a bk run at higher output isn't anything like that of a high quality tube stove. I have also noticed that when I run the princess on an 8 hour cycle the exhaust temps are considerably higher than those of the regency run at the same 8 hour loading cycle

 

[bholler]

30 minutes on high, after cat engagement, overheats both flue and catalyst in my setup. This is of course problematic when we know that some members can run full loads on high! Maybe because I'm burning dry softwoods.

The condar cat meter has a "too hot" line that I'm trying to respect to extend cat life and of course the class A chimney has a temperature limit that I'm also wanting to respect not only for safety but because you're just wasting fuel after a point. Some amount of char is necessary because it helps the burn but not 30 minutes for all of us.

Also, to further the diversion, my glass gunk will not burn clean after 20 minutes. That must be an east coast or oak thing. Or maybe my princess is different than the 30 box, or more likely, the coating after months of low burning is quite thick.

The glass is never clean on the princess I am using. When run at 8 hour intervals it's clean in the center but never around the edges

 

[bholler]

My neighbor bought a used 2012 King model, slapped in a new catalyst and is getting 18-30 hours loading on coals with 5 measly 16” splits that he can cover with his hand . Below is what he gets when he tends after a long burn…18-30 hrs. Does he really even need to tend at those times? No.

I’ll eat your PE if it can do that.
View attachment 300963View attachment 300964

Due credit where credit is due…
A 12 hr burn or tending cycle is no slouch with a tube stove, but it still isn’t even in the same ball park as the BK. Just because a BK user tends in 12 hr cycles in no way means they have to as the pictures above prove. Just think of that stove was full how long it could go between tending.

I tend my coal stove every 12 hours as well. That is I shake AND add coal. It will burn for literally 3-4 days of left alone. If I shake and do not add coal, with a 120 lb load it’ll burn for 6-7 days in mild heat o fairly cold temps. But it’s not apples to apples. Neither is comparing any tube stove to a BK…least until they can make a tube stove burn as long…then it becomes apples to apples.

How long a stove can go really doesn't mean much. How long it will go when heating your house to the desired temp does. I switched from a regency that is about the same size as the princess I am now running. And guess what I tend it exactly the same amount. Now in pretty mild temps with the regency I would have to restart a fire every 24 hours the princess I don't. But honestly in my area that's only about a week or 2 a year the rest of the time it's 8 or 12 hours. And both stoves do either of them fairly easily. The regency took a little bit more to get going after 12 but there were coals to do it pretty easily

 

[Hogwildz]

My neighbor bought a used 2012 King model, slapped in a new catalyst and is getting 18-30 hours loading on coals with 5 measly 16” splits that he can cover with his hand . Below is what he gets when he tends after a long burn…18-30 hrs. Does he really even need to tend at those times? No.

I’ll eat your PE if it can do that.
View attachment 300963View attachment 300964

Due credit where credit is due…
A 12 hr burn or tending cycle is no slouch with a tube stove, but it still isn’t even in the same ball park as the BK. Just because a BK user tends in 12 hr cycles in no way means they have to as the pictures above prove. Just think of that stove was full how long it could go between tending.

I tend my coal stove every 12 hours as well. That is I shake AND add coal. It will burn for literally 3-4 days of left alone. If I shake and do not add coal, with a 120 lb load it’ll burn for 6-7 days in mild heat o fairly cold temps. But it’s not apples to apples. Neither is comparing any tube stove to a BK…least until they can make a tube stove burn as long…then it becomes apples to apples.

He won't be getting 30 hours when it's sub freezing outside, unless he has a very small, or very tight home. Shoulder season, sure, dead of winter, I have a spare PE for you to snack on

 

[Hoytman]

We’ll see what his reply is because I just asked him … @logfarmer so I’ll let him tell you.

He is a neighbor you might say because he lives about 20 minutes from me, but I haven’t even met the man yet. Hoping to have him over soon. I have a couple stoves we can play around with.

His home is 1800 sq ft.

 

[jdr7]

First, thank you everyone for your help. I can't believe how knowledgable you all are, and generous to share all these insights. It's incredibly helpful.

Here's what I'm taking away from it all for my situation, and 1 last question:

• This really comes down to cat vs non-cat
• Both stoves will be great
• Each have pros and cons

I think I'm more swayed toward the BK Princess (and less scared of operating the cat, thanks to you all) but unfortunately we need heat now - and the supplier says they're back ordered until like January. They have 1 PE Summit in stock though. Since I was torn from the beginning, I'd be happy with that stove as well.

Now to my questions:

Question 1: Can any PE Summit (or T6) owners share any rough ideas of burn times? I know a lot of PE owners say 10 hours, but my brother in law has a T6, and it sounds like they reload it a lot more than that. Could be wetter wood, inefficent loading, etc. Can I really get 10 hours of burntime in Dec-Feb 10-20 degree weather? Just trying to get an expectation of how many times I'll reload during the day to use it as our sole heat source, and how it will do throughout the night (will it require reloading in the middle of the night?)

Question 2: Any idea how many more cords of wood I should expect to burn going with a PE (non cat) vs the BK Princess?

I was told given our small square footage, and relative tightness of our home we probably wouldn't need more than 3 cords a season (as primary heat source). But I'm not sure if that was only for the BK, which obviously can do longer burn times and is more efficinet during the shoulder seasons.

For example, is it like - BK = 3 cords, but a PE Summit might be 4? or is it significantly more, like 6 cords? Sorry if this is a dumb question, just trying to education myself more before pulling the trigger.

 

[stoveliker]

You can't make a mistake here.
The wood consumption will be about the same - IF you use them in seasons of the same length (i.e. if you use a BK far into the shoulder season when others might (not saying they are) be done with small fires/often reloading, then you will use more wood with the BK - because you heat more with the BK.
The usage "in winter", i.e. mid December-end of Feb. will be the same. Or at least other variables (stove tetris, wood split size, wood species size, wood wetness variations) will far outweigh any 1% difference in efficiency (if there is any - I did not look it up, because it is not significant enough to bother with).

The efficiencies are too close to notice a difference in wood consumption. They are both great.

If you want to heat this winter, you simply have to go with what you can get. End of story.
There are very few (if any) people unhappy with the PE.

 

[Draughts15]

There are a lot of variables here but I recently loaded my stove at 8p on a small bed of coals with three larger sized maple splits and at 430a had coals for a very easy relight. I have a PE Super Classic and I can go weeks without cleaning the glass. Not even a small haze in the corner if I'm burning correctly. One of the many reasons why I went with a PE stove was to have a clear view of the fire along with high heat output. I've gotten 8 hour burns before on just a half load. I do wonder how I'd like a cat stove though. Thinking of buying a BK for my garage because the longer heat output would be ideal.

 

[logfarmer]

He won't be getting 30 hours when it's sub freezing outside, unless he has a very small, or very tight home. Shoulder season, sure, dead of winter, I have a spare PE for you to snack on

Well just because it won’t work for you or anyone else doesn’t mean it won’t work for others! My house is just under 1800sqft in SW Ohio good insulation and yes dead of winter in single digit temps I do 24 hr reloads and could do it at 30 hrs, but my work schedule will interfere with that..oh and the king is connected to a chimney that the “experts” say won’t work and cause all kinds of problems but does fantastic for us! 🤷🏻‍♂️ You also probably don’t want to hear that I’m on hr 14 with 4 average size splits of cottonwood, last night temps was around 40*. You know instead of people calling out BS, maybe the responses should be “oh wow, that’s impressive” or “I didn’t know a stove could that”. Not just saying that to you directly, it’s for everyone in general on this site! Both of those stoves are great options and great company’s. People answer on here with experiences they’ve had with products, but yet people get criticized on their responses. We all can do better people! To the original post, good luck with whichever stove you buy.